Métropolitain
by SlytherinElektra
Summary: Ariadne and Arthur ran into each other in the subway. Mainly Arthur angst. Hope you enjoy!
1. Ligne 10 Gare d'Austerlitz Boulogne

It was a normal day, just like any other day. Ariadne returned from class taking the subway. She had a good half hour till home, but luckily it was only one line. Some of her friends had to take to or even three to get home. Not her. Just one line, the 10th. _Ligne 10 entre Boulogne et Gare d'austerlitz_. She'd take the _Gare d'austerlitz _direction to go to school, and headed to _Boulogne_ to get home. And she had memorized the names and order of all estations, and their connections with other lines.

Sometimes he felt more at home in the subway than in her actual home. There seemed to be a perpetual night in the subway, and she liked the sensation. It reminded her of a time when dreams were the most exciting part of the day. Plus, you could see all kinds of people in the subway. From the elegant old lady who gives air to the whole wagon with her fan, the stereotypical japanase guy playing with a nintendo, a hot guy in a suit taking a nap...

Wait... was that...? No, it couldn't be!

Of all the places she had expected to find him, all the times she'd fantasized about running into him on the street, she never thought she'd find him there, in her very own line of the subway.

"Arthur... is that you?"

He slowly opened his eyes and looked at the person speaking. Ariadne. God, he he was too tired to be a person right now, much more to be a social person.

"Hey, Ariadne! What a surprise! What brings you here?" he said, trying to sound casual.

"I live here, remember? I'm just going home after class. Nothing too exciting. And what are you doing here? You on a job?"

"No, just finished one. I'm here on vacation." Arthur answered, trying very hard not to let his eyes droop. He wanted to sleep so badly...but the thought that if he went to sleep he could never wake up again always cleared his mind.

"And why did you choose Paris for your vacation?" Ariadne asked, chatty. She secretly hoped he'd answer something like "_because here I could ran into you, chérie _" but knew that it was not going to be the case.

"I just caught the first flight from London." he said, in a soft tone. Very Arthur_-y_ , having a logical and not at all emotional reason to be there. The stations continued to appear. They were in _Duroc_ now, and a lot of people got off to connect with line 13, which allowed Ariadne to sit next to her former colleague.

"And what were you doing in London, if I may ask?"

"Job. With Eames. Very long." The realization that Ariadne was there and watching him was not a nice one. Usually, he'd love her company, but not now. He didn't want her to see him decline, to see him at his lowest. He had hoped he'd be left alone and silently pass in an anonymous hotel room. But Ariadne... she changed everything. She even gave him a will to fight. Now he just had to remain the best way he probably could, so she wouldn't notice something was wrong.

"Arthur, are you feeling all right?"

Well, maybe it was a bit too late.

Ariadne had noticed everything. Since she'd found him, she noticed the exhausted look in his face, the dark shadows under his eyes, the little wheezing sounds he made when he breathed. At first she thougth that he was probably tired after a long trip but the wheezing and the the strange form bruises in his neck (he'd tried to hide that, but to no avail) didn't match jet lag. Also, London-Paris was a really short trip, specially by plane.

"Yes, of course I'm all right." Arthur lied "And how are you? I didn't hear much of you after the Fischer job."

"I...just went back to college. I decided to finish my licence before I choose a career. That way, even if I don't do any dream-sharing jobs again, I'll have a title, something solid. And legal."

They both smiled.

"Well, look at you." Arthur said "And people thought I was the sensible one."

They were in _Michel-Ange-Auteil_ when the woman in front of them dropped her bag trying to get out. Arthur, being the gentleman that he was, helped her lift it, and Ariadne saw that he had more of those strange bruises in his wrists, too, and how his wheezing became louder after the effort.

"You sure you're okay?"

"Yes, I..."

But then he took in Ariadne's concerned expression and decided to come clean. If he had taken another line, the next subway or the previous one, if he had simply sat in another wagon they wouldn't have found each other, and she would've never known. But there she was, and as they were reaching the end of the line (_Boulogne- Jean jaurès_) he spilled the truth:

"Ariadne, I... The last job went wrong, very wrong. People were angry, and I don't know when or with what, but I've been poisoned. Apparently, this is how they teach lessons, how they make sure no one messes with them. It's probably something that has no cure. I went to a hospital and they couldn't find anything. So I just resigned and... came to Paris to die."

And right there, in that moment, reaching that last stop of the 10th line, Ariadne thought she'd lost the ability to breathe. She looked at him, taking in everything. The perfectly gelled hair, the tortured eyes, the soft lips. He couldn't die. He just couldn't.

As the train emptied completely (_arrivée au destination_/arrival to destination) Ariadne took one of his hands softly and told him:

"You, dying? Well, I'm sorry, but I certainly cannot let that happen. Let's get out of this train and we'll figure something out. But you found me here for a reason, I'm sure of that. You are going to live, Arthur, no matter what it takes."

A/N: Yes, I wote it on the subway ^ ^ Did you like it? Hate it? I know it's a bit odd...Anyhow, leave any thoughts in REVIEW section! Would any of you readers would like a continuation of the story? I could feature different lines and places from Paris in the next chapters. You know you want to review!


	2. Ligne 9 Pont de Sèvres Montreuil

It was mostly discouraging. How people would continue ith their lives, play with their stupid phones, get mad because they'd lost the train and had to wait four or five minutes till the next one. How they continued reading their stupid books, stupid journals, listening to their stupid music, talking on the stupid phone. She wanted to shout, to yell at them that none of that was of the slightest importance, that all of their problems were stupid. That they couldn't continue with their unimportant lives while there were actual problems. While someone was dying.

Ariadne was patiently waiting on _Tocadéro_ for Arhtur to arrive, and was hoping to catch the next train. Line 9 was always filled with people, and this particular stop was always full of tourists, who had been visiting the infamous _Tour Eiffel_ and were now off to the next must-see of the city. And their happy chat and photo cameras were bothering Ariadne to no end.

She and Arthur were supposed to meet Eames in République. The forger had come from London to see if he could help. Ariadne was not very optimistic about it.

She had been researching symptoms and poisons, to no avail. Nothing seemed to fit Arthur's symptoms, and no matter how many she spent in the f***ing national library (_Bibliothèque François Mitterrand_), or how many doctors and scientists she'd ask, nobody seemed to have an answer. Arthur was dying in front of her, and she didn't have an answer. Arthur had suggested a few times that maybe she should give up, and she didn't want him to be right.

Just as the anonymous feminine voice of the metro told her how much time there was until the next train (_direction Montreuil, prochain train dans 4 minutes)_ she saw him appear. He still had a very powerful presence and maintained his usual elegance, but his skin had gone totally white, and the shadows under his eyes had become more pronounced. It was clear that he was sick.

"Anything new?" she asked him, hopeful. Maybe he had found something, some sort of clue to what was going on.

"No." Came the short, tired answer. Time was obviously running out. The strange bruises had spread to his chest now, and his breathing had worsened. Ariadne had also heard vomiting a few times, even if he tried to hide it by saying he'd been freshening up.

So, that was it. The situation seemed to be desperate. Ariadne had done everything she could think about, called everyone, and received nothing but a bunch of apologies and half-answers. Cobb had simply disconnected the number he gave her during the job and was unreachable, not wanting to be bothered by all the clients proposing him jobs he would no longer accept. Some people had simply told her to let them know when the funeral would take place. As the train arrived, Ariadne felt tears streaming down her face.

She and Arthur took two places, one in front of each other. Since it was quite late, the train was half empty, which was a relief, because going all the way standing was never comfortable. When Arthur took in Ariadne's tears, he let out a particularl loud wheeze and looked at her with a sorrowful look.

"Don't...please don't cry for me. We'll figure out something."

Ariadne hastily wiped her tears and decided to be positive. Not to think about funerals, or how Arthur had more trouble breathing now. They were in _Franklin D. Roosevelt _now, near the Champs Elysées and a lot of people got off. They were few people left in the car now, and Arthur's ellaborate breathing was the only thing that could be heard. It was getting louder and louder, and his face paler and paler. Then he shut his eyes, and his lips started turning blue. That's when Ariadne decided they'd get off on the next station and just call an ambulance.

But the subway had other plans. Before they arrived to the next station the lights turned off and the engines stopped. "_En raison d'un découpage électrique..._"_"" """""_Great. There was a problem with the electric line, and they had to wait there, on a dead train, with no lights and no movement, in between two stations. It happenned quite often, and it was normally not a great inconvenience if one wasn't in a hurry, but now it was really bad.

Because Arthur couldn't breathe.

And they couldn't get out of there.

It couln't be happening. They were trapped.

Ariadne started calling out for help in French, almost screaming for a doctor, when a young woman started to come from the other side of the wagon. She put a hand on Ariadne's shoulder and said.

"_Calmez-vous. Je peux vous aider, j'ai des medecines"_

And she started looking in her purse.

"Thank you so much" Ariadne said, forgetting that she was supposed to be speaking in French.

"English, nice. I didn't really know if I was going to be able to explain myself in French. There you go!" she said, taking out an inhaler "It's my roommate's asthma medication. Sometimes he forgets it at home, so I always have a spare one."

The woman knelt before Arthur, softly got him awake and explained him how the inhaler worked. He used it, and after a bit, the point man's wheezing decreased, and the subway started to function again. They reached the _St-Philippe du Roule_ station, and Ariadne breathed, composed herself.

Mysterious woman with an inhaler, who was now sitting next to Ariadne, smiled.

"This is the kind of thing that doesn't happen in the London subway, you know? We'll have to mind the gap, but we don't have to mind the suddenly stopping trains." Ariadne realized now that the woman had a British accent. She was just happy that she was there.

"Thank you." said Arthur's voice from the other side. He looked better now, his lips having regained its colour, and even his face seemed to have more colour than before.

"No worries. Where are you heading?" She asked.

"To République"

"Me too. I guess is a big station."

"It is."

"You know what? Some friends and I are setting up a kind of clandestine lab...but I guess he'd be better in a decent hospital... never mind." And after those mysterious words, the woman waved goodbye and went back to her initial place, at the end of the wagon.

Ariadne couldn't wait to get to her destination. Every passing minute she passed on the subway she was afraid, afraid it would stop again, afraid they were not going to make it. She just wanted to arrive.

Arthur had watched the whole scene in silence, unable to speak. He had seen the train stop, had felt the air vacating his lung, had experienced an awful drowning sensation. He vaguely recalled hearing Ariadne scream, and then there was a blank. The next thing he remembered was a brunette offering him an inhaler, and suddenly he could breathe again. He was alive again.

They finally reached République (_connection avec lignes 3, 5 et 11_) and got off the train. Before they got to the exit, Arthur, out of the blue, hugged the architect.

"I'm sorry I scared you." He said "I really am. Maybe it would be better if you..."

"No way, Arthur. As hard as this is, I am not abandoning you. Come on, we don't want to keep Eames waiting."

The adress Eames had given them happened to be just above the subway tracks, and you could hear it passing if you listened carefully. It was an old residential building with different offices in each floor. When they reached the second floor, they rang the buzzer and entered in an elegant room filled with books and hospital machinery. The sign on the door said "Antoine Dubois, Médecin", probably Eames' contact. Ariadne and Arthur went to the room where they heard voices and found an incredible chaos of papers, computers and a seemingly unending amount of manually labeled bottles.

"Eames, what is all this?"

"There you are! Please, take a seat as I explain to you how awesome I've been. When Ari told me about you, I knew I had to do something, something big, like if this was a job. So I called dear Monsieur Dubois and he left me this place, as a sort of headquarters. After figuring out the location, I needed a team, so I called the best chemists I know and told them there was a more important job to do than whatever they were doing. They are intelligent people who'll find out anything odd in your system and create a compound to fight it."

"That does sound quite awesome" Ariadne conceded.

"Let me then, introduce you to the people that are going to perform the magic. Folks! Our star has arrived."

Two people entered the room.

"Arthur and Ariadne! It's a pleasure to see you again."

Yusuf. Of course. He was a very talented chemist, and was known for his skill to make complicated and very specific drugs.

And the other person was...

"Oh my god! The yankees from the subway!"

"Girl with an inhaler!"

Girl with an inhaler happenned to be one of Eames' friends, who, aside from being a chemist (and ocasional thief) on various jobs, was also a nurse and had vast pharmacological knowledge. Ariadne was glad it was her, since she already trusted this woman after the help she'd given in the train.

Arthur was also kind of happy, for the first time in weeks. While he listened to the muffled sound of the subway underneath the floor he understood why. Today, there was hope. And even if he didn't make it, now Ariadne would be with someone when he passed. Eames could confort her when he died. And he'd die among friends.

He dozed off while he fiercely held something in his hand. But this time, it was not a die. It was a paper.

He was holding the subway ticket of the day he had ran into Ariadne.

His ticket back to life.

A/N: Too odd? Too long? I just hate it when the subway suddenly stops between two stations (and it happens a lot) and thought it could get quite ugly in a situation like this. Anyhow, please review, tell me what you think! I love to hear rom youuu! You know yo want to review!


End file.
